Austria's population estimate in October 2006 was 8,292,322. The population of the capital, Vienna, exceeds 1.6 million (2.2 million with suburbs) , representing about a quarter of the country's population and is known for its vast cultural offerings and high standard of living.

Languages

The mother tongue of the population by prevalence, is German (official nationwide) 88.6%, followed by Turkish (2.3%) , Serbian (2.2%) , Croatian (official in Burgenland) (1.6%) , other (includes Slovene, official in Carinthia, and Hungarian, official in Burgenland) 5.3% (2001 census).

The official language, German, is spoken by almost all residents of the country. Austria's mountainous terrain led to the development of many distinct German dialects. All of the dialects in the country, however, belong to Austro-Bavarian groups of German dialects, with the exception of the dialect spoken in its western-most Bundesland, Vorarlberg, which belongs to the group of Alemannic dialects. There is also a distinct grammatical standard for Austrian German with a few differences to the German spoken in Germany.